John
McCain’s recent dramatic
appeal on the Senate
floor included these words: “The most revered members of this
institution accepted the necessity of compromise in order to make
incremental progress on solving America's problems.” He was right.
Six years ago I criticized
Speaker of the House John Boehner for saying that he rejected the
word “compromise.” And at that time I referred to some of the
words below by and about others who advocated conciliation and
working together for the common good.

In
his Ben Franklin biography, Walter Isaacson wrote
that “we like to think of our nation’s founders as men with
unwavering fealty to high-minded principles. To some extent they
were. But when they gathered in Philadelphia during the summer of
1787 to write the Constitution, they showed that they were also
something just as great and often more difficult to be: compromisers.
In that regard they reflected not just the classical virtues of honor
and integrity but also the Enlightenment’s values of balance,
order, tolerance, scientific calibration and respect for other
people’s beliefs.”

In
another essay Isaacson
wrote that for Franklin “compromise was not only a practical
approach but a moral one. Tolerance, humility and a respect for
others required it. The near perfect document [the Constitution] that
arose from his compromise could not have been approved if the hall
had contained only crusaders who stood on unwavering principle.
Compromisers may not make great heroes, but they do make great
democracies.”

In
his Profiles in Courage,
future President John Kennedy stated:

We
should not be too hasty in condemning all compromise as bad morals.
For politics and legislation are not matters for inflexible
principles or unattainable ideals. . . . legislation, under the
democratic way of life and the Federal system of Government, requires
compromise. . . .

Some
of my colleagues who are criticized today for lack of forthright
principles—or who are looked upon with scornful eyes as
compromising “politicians”—are simply engaged in the fine art
of conciliating, balancing and interpreting the forces and factions
of public opinion. . . . Their consciences may direct them from time
to time to take a more rigid stand for principle—but their
intellects tell them that a fair or poor bill is better than no bill
at all, and that only through the give-and-take of compromise will
any bill receive the successive approval of the Senate, the House,
the President and the nation.

President
Barack Obama also often encouraged compromise, and one of the saddest
aspects of his presidency was that he seldom found Republicans
willing to do so. Shortly after he delivered a University of Michigan
Commencement Speech in mid-2010, one of his finest, I quoted
from that speech, and from his book, The
Audacity of Hope, about the necessity of
compromise. In his speech he criticized the “vilification and
over-the-top rhetoric [that] closes the door to the possibility of
compromise.” In his book he wrote of Lincoln’s humility and
stated that Lincoln demonstrated that “we must talk and reach for
common understandings, precisely because all of us are imperfect.”

Toward
the end of his presidency, Obama gave another commencement speech in
which he stressed the importance of compromise. This time he was
speaking at Howard University. In it, he said,
“change requires more than just speaking out—it requires
listening, as well. In particular, it requires listening to those
with whom you disagree, and being prepared to compromise. . . .
Democracy requires compromise, even when you are 100 percent right.”

But
it is not just those on the political Left who have perceived the
necessity of compromise. In England during the eighteenth century,
Edmund
Burke, sometimes labelled “the father of modern conservatism,”
also advocated it. Urging conciliation with the American
revolutionaries, he
declared:
“All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every
virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. We
balance inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some rights, that
we may enjoy others; and we choose rather to be happy citizens than
subtle disputants.”

Russell
Kirk, sometimes called “the father of American Traditionalist
Conservatism,” liked to quote Burke and also emphasized the
importance of compromise. In
his essay on
the “Errors of Ideology,” he wrote that “Ideology makes
political compromise impossible: the ideologue will accept no
deviation from the Absolute Truth of his secular revelation. . . .
Ideologues vie one with another in fancied fidelity to their Absolute
Truth; and they are quick to denounce deviationists or defectors from
their party orthodoxy. . . .[but] the prudential politician . . . is
well aware that the primary purpose of the state is to keep the
peace. This can be achieved only by maintaining a tolerable balance
among great interests in society. Parties, interests, and social
classes and groups must arrive at compromises, if bowie-knives are to
be kept from throats. When ideological fanaticism rejects any
compromise, the weak go to the wall.”

In
his autobiography, An
American Life (1990),
Ronald Reagan criticized “radical conservatives” in the
California legislature while he was governor. For them “
‘compromise’ was a dirty word,” and they “wouldn’t face the
fact that we couldn’t get all of what we wanted. . . . They wanted
all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don’t get it
all, some said, don’t take anything.” Reagan went on to say, “I’d
learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got
everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: ‘I
have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat.”

In
recent decades good politicians and commentators, both Republican and
Democrat, have recognized the need for compromise. Former Republican
Missouri senator (for two decades) John Danforth
noted,
for example,
that “if legislators want to legislate—and not just appeal to a
rabid group of supporters come hell or high water—that’s going to
be in a system that involves compromise.” In such a system, he
added, “It’s very helpful to believe that your program is not
immutable. And that the other people you’re dealing with have
something to say and something to add.” More recently, but before
Donald Trump’s election, Danforth criticized
him
and “the
anger and hatefulness that he expresses.” An ordained Episcopal
priest, Danforth added, “Politics is not religion. Politics is
simply politics. It is a method for working [out] our differences.”

Although
in our own poisonous and partisan environment, it is rare to find
senators from different political parties cooperating, this was not
always so. Perhaps the best twenty-first century example of working
together across the political aisle was that of Senators Orrin Hatch
and Edward Kennedy. After Kennedy died in August 2009, Hatch
stated the following:

We
did not agree on much, and more often than not, I was trying to
derail whatever big government scheme he had just concocted. We did
manage to forge partnerships on key legislation, such as the Ryan
White AIDS Care Act, State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and
most recently, the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. Ted was a
lion among liberals, but he was also a constructive and shrewd
lawmaker. He never lost sight of the big picture and was willing to
compromise on certain provisions in order to move forward on issues
he believed important. . . .

We
can all take a lesson from Ted’s 47 years of service and
accomplishment. I hope that America’s ideological opposites in
Congress, on the airwaves, in cyberspace, and in the public square
will learn that being faithful to a political party or a
philosophical view does not preclude civility, or even friendships,
with those on the other side. . . . I hope that Americans in general
and Washington politicians in particular will take a lesson from
Ted’s life and realize that we must aggressively advocate for our
positions but realize that in the end, we have to put aside political
pandering, work together and do what is best for America.

Although
the conservative Hatch still serves in the Senate, he has not been
able to work together with any Democrat as he did with Ted Kennedy.
Another conservative senator who sometimes worked with Kennedy was
McCain, who considered him a friend and said,
“I admired his passion for his convictions, his patience with the
hard and sometimes dull work of legislating, and his uncanny sense
for when differences could be bridged.” Ironically, McCain has now
been diagnosed with the same form of brain cancer that killed his
Democratic friend. Like Ted Kennedy, McCain has not always acted
wisely—who can forget his selection of Sarah Palin as his 2008
Republican running mate—but neither man’s imperfections negate
their most noble moments in the Senate. And two of McCain’s were
his speech to the Senate on July 25, 2017 urging compromise and his
crucial vote against the Republican “skinny option” to partially
replace Obamacare.

In
his speech McCain spoke not only about “the necessity of
compromise,” but of the need for humility and cooperation. “Stop
listening,” he urged his fellow senators, “to the bombastic
loudmouths on the radio and television and the Internet.” He
implicitly criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s
untraditional procedure for trying to repeal Obamacare and suggested
instead letting the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
“hold hearings, try to report a bill out of committee with
contributions from both sides.” It could then be brought “to the
floor for amendment and debate.” He realized that what might be
passed could “be imperfect, full of compromises, and not very
pleasing to implacable partisans on either side, but that [it] might
provide workable solutions to problems Americans are struggling with
today.’

After
the speech and McCain’s crucial vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer listed
his friend McCain as one of the greatest senators he has known—a
category in which he also included Ted Kennedy. Schumer also
expressed his hope that the senators could work together as McCain
suggested to improve our healthcare system.

Given
the track records of the House of Representatives, Mitch McConnell,
and President Trump, the odds of the McCain and Schumer hopes being
fulfilled might appear slim. But former President Obama’s words in
The Audacity of Hope seem
appropriate here. “The best of the American spirit [is] having the
audacity to believe despite all the evidence to the contrary that we
could restore a sense of community to a nation torn by conflict.”